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DT Luke Fickell (HC Wisconsin Badgers)

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Other than the questionable lack of calling a couple of time outs, a lot of these problems are not his fault. The staff was kept virtually intact in order to keep stability in the program due to the late departure of JT. Guys, I hate to break it to you, but the skill position players are young, inexperienced, and the coaches had no idea how they would react to playing in real games so early in their careers, due to mistakes made by upper classmen. To make matters worse, we have had two WRs injured so far this season, and Fick may have to start playing walk-ons soon. (OK, so that's an exaggeration). Linbackers were also a question coming in, and if anything, they have played above everyone's expectations, except for those who think we should be starting 3 NFL caliber LBs every year, regardless of turnover.

Personally, I think Fick needs to just calm down and coach the team without worrying what anyone in the fan base/media/admin think. If he's just keeping the seat warm, fine. I don't think it will reflect horribly on him that he was dealt a poor hand when he took on this job. Yeah, he could have gotten his first HC job at Toledo or some other MAC school, where he could goof up without the spotlight shining on him, but it shows real balls on his part to take the mess that he got stuck with, and balls is enough for me at this point. Things will get better.
 
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AuTX Buckeye;2006244; said:
They could do multiple choice on the score board

text to 78778
a) Dave
b) Dave
c) Draw
d) screen

would be just as effective.
Click to expand...

I am a big fan of this system:

Start out in I-Formation. Flip a coin, 'heads' you run a lead iso dive, 'tails' you fake the lead iso and run a reverse play action boot with Braxton on the back side with some crossing patterns.

Running these two plays all game with the flip of a coin deciding the order would be far more effective than what we saw against the Spartans.
 
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MaxBuck;2006223; said:
It's not really possible to fire assistants in mid-season, unless they've been proven to have committed a felony or done something morally egregious. So Fickell's hands are tied. And he won't be hired to continue.

Problem is, if Fickell tells the OC he's been relieved of his duties, we have nobody else who has the experience to design the attack, teach the attack, and call plays. Not to mention coach the O-line. Bad situation that I don't see a real solution to until the post-season.
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The the bold may be true, but ask yourself this: could things get much worse than MSU?
 
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jwinslow;2006242; said:
Hazell isn't on staff. Who else is going to make the calls?
Click to expand...

AuTX Buckeye;2006244; said:
They could do multiple choice on the score board

text to 78778
a) Dave
b) Dave
c) Draw
d) screen

would be just as effective.
Click to expand...

I know this was a joke, but it is true. I find it hard to believe there is nobody on this coaching staff that is capable of calling plays. =

Woody1968;2006240; said:
Other than the questionable lack of calling a couple of time outs, a lot of these problems are not his fault. The staff was kept virtually intact in order to keep stability in the program due to the late departure of JT. Guys, I hate to break it to you, but the skill position players are young, inexperienced, and the coaches had no idea how they would react to playing in real games so early in their careers, due to mistakes made by upper classmen. To make matters worse, we have had two WRs injured so far this season, and Fick may have to start playing walk-ons soon. (OK, so that's an exaggeration). Linbackers were also a question coming in, and if anything, they have played above everyone's expectations, except for those who think we should be starting 3 NFL caliber LBs every year, regardless of turnover.

Personally, I think Fick needs to just calm down and coach the team without worrying what anyone in the fan base/media/admin think. If he's just keeping the seat warm, fine. I don't think it will reflect horribly on him that he was dealt a poor hand when he took on this job. Yeah, he could have gotten his first HC job at Toledo or some other MAC school, where he could goof up without the spotlight shining on him, but it shows real balls on his part to take the mess that he got stuck with, and balls is enough for me at this point. Things will get better.
Click to expand...

I'm certainly not blaming Fickell for everything. You can excuse young players for making mistakes or not executing all of the time. But you can't excuse poor playcalling for this long. What can Fickell do about it? Nobody knows, but it would be nice to know at least that much or it is difficult to judge how all of this is handled.
 
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kn1f3party;2006252; said:
I know this was a joke, but it is true. I find it hard to believe there is nobody on this coaching staff that is capable of calling plays. =



I'm certainly not blaming Fickell for everything. You can excuse young players for making mistakes or not executing all of the time. But you can't excuse poor playcalling for this long. What can Fickell do about it? Nobody knows, but it would be nice to know at least that much or it is difficult to judge how all of this is handled.
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I understand what you are saying, but is the playcalling really the issue, or is it the execution? I see a lot of problems with execution this year, both on the part of the QBs and the WRs. Except for MSU, the running game has been ok for the most part, but it is very easy to stop the run when you know the other team can't pass. The O line got a lot of grief for giving up so many sacks, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that MSU knew when the snap was coming, and were able to get the jump. That is an issue that Braxton Miller needs to deal with, because Bauserman did not have that problem, and had more time to throw. (I know that MSU was playing prevent at that point). Miller will improve, but he's only a freshman, and has a lot of learning to do. I don't care if Norm Chow is calling the plays, if the players are not executing properly, or if they are making freshman mistakes (No one can blame them), the plays are going to look ugly.
 
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MaxBuck;2006230; said:
Again, I don't think making staff changes mid-season is really feasible. Not even sure it can be done under NCAA rules. I don't think "the administration letting him" enters into the equation at all. Let me remind you that he was not prevented from hiring Mike Vrabel. Given the iffy performance of linebackers and pass rush this season, that one doesn't seem to have been a home run.
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As grad pointed out a couple of days ago, but many folks not familiar with Clemson remember the details of; in October, 2008 Tommy Bowden was let go as HC at Clemson and Dabo Swinney was named interim HC. One of the first things he did was fire OC Rob Spence, and make himself the OC.

Staff changes are definitely allowable under NCAA rules - the main thing is that very few qualified guys are available mid-season.

Changing who calls the plays is a more realistic option - on the current staff the best candidates are probably Dick Tressel and Stan Drayton, but it's not something that either of those guys has done at this level.
 
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BB73;2006273; said:
As grad pointed out a couple of days ago, but many folks not familiar with Clemson remember the details of; in October, 2008 Tommy Bowden was let go as HC at Clemson and Dabo Swinney was named interim HC. One of the first things he did was fire OC Rob Spence, and make himself the OC.

Staff changes are definitely allowable under NCAA rules - the main thing is that very few qualified guys are available mid-season.

Changing who calls the plays is a more realistic option - on the current staff the best candidates are probably Dick Tressel and Stan Drayton, but it's not something that either of those guys has done at this level.
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I think Walt Harris is available. :evil:
 
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If the Admin. only wanted a caretaker with little power why not give the job to Heacock for this year..he has head coaching experience and is not some young coach with a lot to lose if this becomes worse..I wonder how much of the Jobs fiasco was known by LF when he agreed to this post..he was assuming TP and the others were coming back ..I truly admire his loyalty to tOSU to take the job under the conditions offered ..
 
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buckeyesin07;2004142; said:
No offense, but your analogy is way off base, as it relies on the assumption that Bama and MSU are equally talented teams.
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No offense either, but you are assuming that right now tOSU and UF are equally talented teams. Let's not forget that our Offense is missing Philly Brown, Posey, Boom, Adams and Pryor. That is an awful lot of talent, experience and production. Just sayin...I think the analogy works...

:osu:
 
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